|
Thus the Intellectual-Principle, in the act of knowing the
Transcendent, is a manifold. It knows the Transcendent in very
essence but, with all its effort to grasp that prior as a pure
unity, it goes forth amassing successive impressions, so that, to
it, the object becomes multiple: thus in its outgoing to its
object it is not [fully realised] Intellectual-Principle; it is
an eye that has not yet seen; in its return it is an eye
possessed of the multiplicity which it has itself conferred: it
sought something of which it found the vague presentment within
itself; it returned with something else, the manifold quality
with which it has of its own act invested the simplex.
If it had not possessed a previous impression of the
Transcendent, it could never have grasped it, but this
impression, originally of unity, becomes an impression of
multiplicity; and the Intellectual-Principle, in taking
cognisance of that multiplicity, knows the Transcendent and so is
realized as an eye possessed of its vision.
It is now Intellectual-Principle since it actually holds its
object, and holds it by the act of intellection: before, it was
no more than a tendance, an eye blank of impression: it was in
motion towards the transcendental; now that it has attained, it
has become Intellectual-Principle henceforth absorbed; in virtue
of this intellection it holds the character of
Intellectual-Principle, of Essential Existence and of
Intellectual Act where, previously, not possessing the
Intellectual Object, it was not Intellectual Perception, and, not
yet having exercised the Intellectual Act, it was not
Intellectual-Principle.
The Principle before all these principles is no doubt the first
principle of the universe, but not as immanent: immanence is not
for primal sources but for engendering secondaries; that which
stands as primal source of everything is not a thing but is
distinct from all things: it is not, then, a member of the total
but earlier than all, earlier, thus, than the
Intellectual-Principle- which in fact envelops the entire train
of things.
Thus we come, once more, to a Being above the
Intellectual-Principle and, since the sequent amounts to no less
than the All, we recognise, again, a Being above the All. This
assuredly cannot be one of the things to which it is prior. We
may not call it "Intellect"; therefore, too, we may not call it
"the Good," if "the Good" is to be taken in the sense of some one
member of the universe; if we mean that which precedes the
universe of things, the name may be allowed.
The Intellectual-Principle is established in multiplicity; its
intellection, self-sprung though it be, is in the nature of
something added to it [some accidental dualism] and makes it
multiple: the utterly simplex, and therefore first of all beings,
must, then, transcend the Intellectual-Principle; and, obviously,
if this had intellection it would no longer transcend the
Intellectual-Principle but be it, and at once be a multiple.
|
|